Industrial Engineer · phase 15 of 16 · noun

Parameter

Stored drive setting that defines ratings, control behavior, I/O functions, limits, or communications.

The Explain card

Plain English: A parameter is one stored setting inside the drive. Motor data, ramp times, terminal functions, limits, control mode and network settings are all parameters, each with a number and a value.
Example: A ramp time parameter is set to 10 seconds. Change it to 20 and the drive accelerates twice as slowly, with no wiring and no program.
Why it matters: A drive is its parameters, and a replacement with default parameters is a different machine. Save the parameter set to a file and to the keypad, and record which ones were changed from default, because that list is the commissioning.
Hook: The drive's whole personality, one numbered setting at a time.

How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.

In a sentence

During commissioning, the technician adjusts the motor rated-current parameter to match the nameplate before starting the VFD.

How it is built

Where it came from

Origin: New Latin parameter, formed from Greek para, beside, and metron, measure
Entered the language: 1650s
What changed: It began as a mathematical term for an auxiliary measured quantity, then broadened to quantities used in scientific and technical systems.

How it is spelled

Pattern: It retains the Greek-derived prefix para-.
Pattern: It ends with the measure-related spelling -meter.
Breaks the pattern: The -meter ending is pronounced differently from the standalone word meter.

Spelled like

Broken into chunks

What it sits beside

Same subject

Same shape

drive commissioning vocabulary

drive data-access terms

Phase 15: VFD Parameters and Communications

The parameter set itself, and the network words a controller uses to read and write it while the machine is running.